


west, where you go

by starvels (dinosaur)



Series: Cap-IM Bingo [6]
Category: Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Animal Death, Dragons, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Knights - Freeform, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stony Bingo 2017, like pining as in wow i love ur arms steebe but also pining as in a fuck ton of pine trees, mentions of animal abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 13:27:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11647494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinosaur/pseuds/starvels
Summary: Tony's got a dragon to slay, a knight captain to lead into the forest and a hole to fill in his gold-veined heart.Not necessarily in that order.





	west, where you go

**Author's Note:**

> for my cap-ironman bingo square of "genre: action/adventure." not my usual, so fun to play with weehee. 
> 
> please mind the trigger warnings for animal harm and safe readings !

 

_Can you hear this fire_  
_Burning like the drums in the night_  
_Behind your eyes well I can see you tried_  
_The sun sets in the west where you go to die_  
  
hiyhiy | lostboycrow

 

 

When the peach of dawn creeps through the lower branches of the forest, Tony finally leaves off his patrolling at the edge of camp to wake Steve.

“Captain,” he says, quiet in the still air. “It’s time.”

The hand he lays on Steve’s shoulder warms instantly. The man seems to keep stoked coals under his skin. It fits the fire always in his eyes. Tony removes his hand and feels cold.

Steve wakes slowly, as if they were not in another kingdom, were not on a mission that might mean the death of both of them.

“Mm,” he mumbles into his arms.

“It’s dawn,” Tony whispers back.

“We must,” Steve yawns, “Move.”

Tony furls a smile and can’t help a chuckle. Steve’s hair is mussed and he has a splotch of dirt across his cheek. “Yes,” he says as Steve stretches, “We must.”

It’s been 12 days since they set forth. A hard journey by road and a nearly impossible one by tree and spring-washed trail. But, they’re close. Just a day or two more of hard pace.

Even now, Tony can feel the call of gold in his palms pressed to the ground. His knees thrum with the enormity of the pile of the hoard. It’s due north west, tucked into the ore of the mountain, well hidden perhaps, if not for the way that gold calls to Tony, yearns to be molded by his hands. The bracelets and ornaments he wears to smith and fight with resonate and itch to join together with the hoard.

_Soon_ , he calms them, irons his control over them smooth. _Soon._

Steve is rolling his pack away already.

Tony waits until he has it tied before he hands over his portion of the jerky and cheese they’ve had for nearly the whole of the trip.

Steve grunts a thanks.

They set off.

It’s easy, with the Captain. He’s as capable a tracker as Tony has ever seen. He doesn’t seem to need as much rest or help in the forest as most city folk tend to and he doesn’t seem bothered by the prospect of possible death. Always a plus in company.

They exchange few words as they go, mostly Tony stopping them to close his eyes and reach out to the gold, make sure their course stays true.

At midday, the sun alights on a wide clearing in the trees. Far across it, a sect of wyverns stares out at them.

Tony sighs.

Steve laughs beside him, already pulling his shield from his back and his sword from sheath. He’s only in under-armor plating and greaves, but it doesn’t seem to worry him. “Come now, goldsmith, just a few wyverns.”

Just a few dangerous lizards itching to eat them.

Tony slithers his gift into the first 4 gold bands at his wrists and begins to pull them to gauntlets. Over his fingers, over his palms, with a holding circlet for the compressed gold-titanium alloy medallions at his neck to fall down and lock into. He pulls the rest of his armor over his body quickly, checking the joints with rotations and finally locking in the faceplate with a satisfying click.

The gold hums against Tony’s skin, warm and ready.  

Steve watches him, eyes bright under his helm.

Tony raises an eyebrow in return as the wyverns begin to circle around the two of them.

“Do you want five or two?” He asks Steve, tongue in cheek.

Steve rewards Tony with a laugh as he turns to catch the first strike of an over-ambitious new-green wyvern. It’s small, obviously inexperienced.

Tony has just enough time to watch Steve lunge into the open space left by the wyverns attack, slicing out with his sword into the neck of the wyvern and using his momentum to push his shield under the chest plate of a moss wyvern, sending it turning, its spiked tail slashing into its neighbor.

Then, the other side attacks.

Tony rolls under the first swipe and uses a slashing whip of gold to cut at the legs of the wyvern. It shouts and Tony grits his teeth. Bone flashes at the creature’s joints, but it manages a stuttering gallop away.

Tony pushes away the small wave of guilt and focuses. Fighting for Tony happens in a series of reflexes and carefully times calculations.

He checks the claw blow from a yellow-brown wyvern.

The contact allows him to push gold along the whole of its body. He shoves with a thought and it flies backward, gold arc like a thrown sun.

It lands on its own spiked tail with a thud.

Tony is already turning as he recalls the gold, throwing himself to the side and cushioning his fall with a flow of metal, letting Steve come into the wyvern’s blind spot as it focuses on Tony.

A slash to the flank. It cowers.

Steve moves to the next one and Tony takes the one to the left, spinning a tendril of metal hard enough into its chest, the force collapses the tree it hits onto it.

It cries out and scampers from under the trunk and off.

Gold seared into a burning lance, Tony throws at the farthest wyvern, the one trying to get clearance to lift off in the clearing.

A wing, pierced and the wyvern twists in pain.

Parry. Dodge. Lunge. Strike.

Next.

Watch for Steve, watch the surroundings, watch that he doesn’t pull any metal from the surroundings which would include Steve’s armor.

Tony takes a solid hit to the shoulder that leaves his arm numb.

He grits his teeth and lashes out with the pool of gold-titanium in his hand, shoving the wyvern all the way out of the clearing and breaking bones with a crack that echoes across the space and sets Tony’s teeth on edge. The creature takes the opportunity to bellow a roar and flee.

Next.

In the end, they stand in a cleared circle, with only blood and scales as evidence of a fight. They weren’t aiming to kill, but still things happen in battle you don’t intend for them to. Tony’s glad all of them had the strength to leave.

“Good bout,” Tony says, trying to control his breathing.

Steve grins and catches his forearm. “An honor,” he says, like he means it, like Tony is another of the knights in his command.

Tony wishes fervently he had feeling back in that arm.

“An honor,” he says, hoarse, trying not to look at the happy, dirt covered lines of Steve’s face.

Even in his helm, he’s disarmingly handsome.

_Ha_ , Tony laughs at himself and his still numb arm in Steve’s hand; _Disarmingly_.

Steve laughs back like Tony’s joy is reason enough for his own.

Clearing his throat, Tony takes his arm back and begins withdrawing all his armor into their bands. He keeps the band on his right arm vibrating a bit so as to encourage the nerves to come back quickly. “Onwards?”

Steve watches the armor collapse avidly and Tony has the distinct sensation of undressing in front of an audience. He refuses to flush.

“Yes,” Steve says eventually.

They move out and Tony takes deep breaths he holds in his chest

Over fallen trees growing into the ground and steadily more and more uphill, they walk. They’re close, now. Gold thrums heady, just at the edge of Tony’s awareness and the river is beginning to wind to ice.

“Close, now,” Tony murmurs.

Steve hears him, nods. He glances up at the towering mountains, shrouded with hundreds of years of pines. The only direction for him must be hunting sense, the vague inference of where an earth bound, man-eating creature may rest in daylight.

How much experience must Steve have with that particularity, to have been chosen by the king for this task.

“You can feel the gold?” Steve asks.

Tony glances over at him, his strong forearms on display in the afternoon heat.

“Yes.”

“What’s it like?”

How to describe feeling steel in your bones, feeling potential for beauty and destruction at your fingertips at all hours. A nightmare and he can bring down a castle from the treasury up. A daydream and he can turn a river to riches.

“Impossible,” he says eventually, “Yet, everything I’ve ever known.” Steve’s eyes are bright, like he understands a glimmer of that. “It’s powerful, delicate. Can be dangerous to others.”

Warn him, Stark, let him know that you are not safe.

Steve doesn’t seem to pick up on it, just looks intrigued.

“Is it why you were,” Steve pauses, is delicate with the next word, “chosen?”

He doesn’t know why Tony was ordered here, either. They were only peripherally aware of each other from court until 12 days ago.

“Somewhat,” he says.

To be frank, Tony’s a smith, not a slayer.

Gold was never meant to be used as a weapon. Being a goldsmith is rare, prized as a position to aid the highborn and royal. Tony was never meant to make weapons, was supposed to have skill merely in ornaments, not armaments. He was never trained for battle. He learned by surviving.

And Steve, Steve, Tony has learned, is a knight that ought never to have lived through to the other side of an ill childhood, the other side of the blizzard that caught him in squire training. He’s made his honor through first-wound only bouts, through shielding those in his company to wield a weapon as well as him.

Steve is a knight, not a slayer.

But both of them are warriors under a slighted king. Both of them have been chosen for reasons they don’t quite know. Well, Tony suspects he knows why he himself was chosen, but –

He cuts the thought off.

But, nonetheless, they’ll both do their job.

“You know of dragons,” Steve says.

Not a question, so Tony doesn’t respond.

“Will it. . . ” Steve trails off.

“Not all of them are cognizant,” Tony says, even though the answer is probably.

It probably will be verbal and intelligent and emotive. It will probably talk to them as a human would. It will probably object to being slain.

It will want to live.

Steve is watching Tony. The crest on the side of his helm, the notorious wings, have a speckle of blood on them. He yearns to rub it off, detests the sight of something marring the bright white-blue of the emblem. Hopelessly, he wonders if Steve would let him, if he would lean into his touch.

“Have you slain ones that were,” Steve seems to roll the word over his tongue, “Cognizant?”

Tony fixes his eyes back on the path so he doesn’t have to see Steve’s expression. Forces himself to remember that what he touches doesn’t clean, it only dirties.

“Yes,” he says shortly.

_Don’t think of it_ , he tells himself. _Don’t think of it._

The monsters in the dark cannot find you if you don’t believe in them.

Steve doesn’t speak, after that.

Tony can’t say he expected him to.

Over fallen trees and under the fall of a sprinkling of an early summer shower, they walk. Steve in the lead, Tony at his elbow. They are quiet, Steve’s armor muffled in his pack and Tony’s safely ensconced away in bands and chains. They seem to grow heavier as they move closer.

Camp is at the corner of a two great pines, the river 40 paces away.

After another dry meal, Tony sleeps first, with the watchful eyes of Steve. He’s comforted, more than he should be, by the knowledge. Sleep befalls him quickly, even with the silence between them.

He wakes up to a shout.

“Tony!” Steve calls as a giant furred _thing_ comes straight for Tony’s bedroll.

A wall of gold springs up in front of Tony as he throws his hands up.

He’s disoriented and the resounding clap of sound doesn’t help. When he looks for Steve all he can see is a near-translucent mesh of gold.

He shoves his mind at it. It’s only touching one thing, really. The furred something. Tony shoves it off to the side and slams a band of gold across the skull to knock it out and keep it there.

“Steve!” he calls, peeling the rest of the mesh back and into armor plating.

A grunt sounds just as Tony’s vision clears.

Thin with firelight, Steve is far away, using the low branches of a pine as cover while he throws his shield at two more of the things. Visible mostly from its shadow, another of the furred creatures is creeping along the right towards Tony, tail raised and three eyes beedy with reflected light.

Two resounding hits from Steve’s shield.

A skull, a neck.

The cries of pain are loud in the night’s quiet.

Tony rolls the gold-titanium down from its place around his neck and into the formed socket on his palm.

He crouches, over the bedroll. Smaller target, movement meant to keep the creature’s attention locked. His muscles tense as he waits out the short seconds.

One. Two. Three. Four.

The creature jumps.

Tony brings his hand up and lets the blast of metal shoot out with as much force as he can.

It bursts through skin and muscle and organ. Brutal, ugly mess of a killing blow.

The creature staggers, makes a cut off sound and collapses into the ground beside the fire. The ground shudders under Tony’s knees.

It’s a gory thing, all bloody and raggedy fur stretched over misshapen bone. Tony grimaces and slips the gold back to him, letting the blood drop off into the flames with small hisses.

On the other side of camp, Steve finishes off the last creature with a stab of his sword.

In the lull, Tony stretches out his senses, circling a tendril of gold outwards through the trees.

“It was only the four,” Steve says, low, watching.

Tony runs the metal farther and farther out, still, looking for heat. He retreats when the gold touches the cold river, pulling everything back into bands and medallions.

“Mm,” he says, looking down at the corpse of the one he killed. “Chicken for breakfast?” he says, wry.

Steve chuckles, washing out his greaves with a water flask. “Are they flightless, furred birds?”

“No,” Tony says, examining the corpse.

It has an extra set of arms, coming out of its lower ribs. The eyes, Tony can see now, are actually more than three, uneven and like they were just thrown at the creature’s face. It’s jaw is massive, overfilled to bursting with teeth. It’s an unnatural melding of traits, almost certainly magical.

“Chimeras,” Tony says.

“Magic,” Steve agrees.

Either seeped into the earth and into an animal’s food stream by an irresponsible mage or a byproduct of something bigger, something that drove a dragon to come into a busy town and wound 30 and kill one, before disappearing into the night.

They’ll tell the king, but to be frank, they weren’t ordered to solve the events, just to put an end to it. He probably won’t turn half an ear.

Tony sighs and Steve echoes it with a twist of his mouth, unhappy as well.

“A new place to camp,” Steve sheaths his sword. “The bodies will attract visitors.”

Shunting aside his thoughts, Tony gathers his bedroll and pack as Steve gathers his and snuffs the fire.

For an hour they walk, listening to the forest around them and moving carefully. There’s no sign of other similar creatures, but they’re both on edge anyway. Tony feels hypersensitive to everything, especially to Steve – the fire of his body so close in the cool of night. Steve’s balancing hand on Tony’s back across a low, rocky trench feels like it touches all the way to Tony’s bones.

_Cease, desist,_ he orders himself and his foolish, overactive heart.

“Alright?” Steve whispers.

Tony jerks one shoulder in a yes.

“Let’s stop,” Steve suggests. “We need rest for tomorrow, the both of us.”

The forest ahead is as good a spot as any, still close to the river, but tucked away against a thatch of young trees. The ground is mostly dry and level.

“I’ll take watch,” Tony says as they settle.

Steve jerks his head in a no, crossing his impressive arms, “No, you were barely out at all before we were attacked. And you need it more than I do.”

Slighted by that last, even though it’s obvious physically Tony cannot compare to the top knight of the kingdom, Tony crosses his arms right back.

His face must be a right fuming sight because Steve’s expression cracks, visible even in the moonlight.

“I don’t mean any slight,” he says, quietly, “But you ought not to be weakened on my account, tomorrow.”

Tomorrow they battle a dragon.

Tony swallows, feels his arms loosening, “I wouldn’t be. Won’t be.”

Steve nods, and touches his side lightly.

Tony hesitates for a moment before drawing out his bedroll and laying down.

“Wake me, soon,” he demands.

“I will,” Steve says, voice soft.

Sleep settles more hesitantly this time.

Steve wakes him a little later than usual, and Tony nods gruffly, resolves to give Steve a bit more time in the morning as well. They’re nearly to the foot of the mountain, now. Tomorrow will bring them to the door of the dragon, no matter if they lose some of the morning. And the longer the sun is in the sky, the weaker the dragon ought to be.

At least, that’s what Tony defends with, when Steve stumbles into wakefulness, grumpy and glaring.

Cheese and contriteness seems to mollify him.

The forest grows thin and cold under their marching feet. They begin to move away from the river, no longer headed towards the heart of the range, but to the rock face on the west side, the cave that grows with power as the shadows of day lengthen.

Mid-morning, Steve is quietly talkative. Settling his nerves before battle, maybe.

“It seems an awful way to go – dragon’s flame, though I’m sure Roger, rest his soul, was a solid target for anger of all sorts.”

Tony doesn’t say anything, but it must show on his face because Steve’s lips twitch and he nods back.

“Horrific, oily tripe of a man,” Steve agrees, “But a human, nonetheless.”

Tony hums noncommittally. He’s not sure that being a human is an automatic positive.

“You won’t convince me that he doesn’t matter just because he’s small-minded.”

Shrugging, Tony adjusts their path over a fallen tree branch, around a thistle of thorny bushes, “I’m not trying to.”

“No?”

“No. You’ll either learn, or you won’t.”

“Learn what?” Steve asks.

_That humans are the real monsters._

“We need to turn more south-west, to circle up to the cave without being seen,” he says, instead, hitching up his pack.

Steve’s red lips purse unhappily with the topic change.

Tony’s hand flutters, like it wants to reach out. He clenches it.

“Please, Steve,” he says instead, “Can we just – ”

“I know we need to focus,” Steve says.

“Okay.”

They’re both tense. It’s not the best atmosphere for heading into battle, but it’s better than getting into a morality debate, which just tends to make Tony tired and want to cry.

He’s probably supposed to be stronger about this. He’s probably supposed to be a lot of things.

At the base of the mountain, the trees grow at an angle, reaching for the sky. There are claw marks and strangely turned canopies. A group of massive pines bears fire damage, the ends of their limbs scarred and heavy with ash. Steve touches one, focus clicking back into him like an arrow notched. Tony nods when he glances over. They’re almost there, the dragon’s lumbering touch taking over the land.

The climb up is cautious, quiet. They move with grace now, thinking of the battle and readying themselves for the possibility of imminent attack.

Tony walks at Steve’s left and keeps part of his attention on the growing awareness of gold building like a castle wall inside of him. It calls to him, aches to come to his hands.

“It’s time,” he murmurs, hoarse.

He estimates they have less than an hour before they come upon it.

Steve nods and begins to don his armor.

Tony eases the gold out of its resting state, rolling it molten and harmless over his skin, into his helm and gauntlets and boots. Safely ensconced, he breathes out.

“What’s your field of vision in that?” Steve asks and Tony nearly jumps. He didn’t realize Steve had finished. Gods, but he’s fast.

Tony remembers the sound of the shield on his arm crushing a skull.

Fast and deadly.

“It’s alright,” Tony answers, remembering the question at a raise of Steve’s eyebrow.

“Hm,” Steve hums. “I’ll keep an eye on your back.”

Thankfully the helmet covers Tony’s cheek’s irrational response to that.

“I don’t need,” Tony tries.

“No,” Steve agrees, “But I want to.” His armored hand touches Tony’s arm with a low ringing sound, “We’ll make it through this, metal-head.”

Well, if Steve orders it so.

Tony is glad his flush is hidden away. He nods.

They strap down and climb up.

Inset to the harsh rocks of the mountain, is a cave entrance worn smooth with too many years of rough use. It’s a giant opening, unnatural in the face of the terrain. The weight of the gold inside it seems to stretch out, enticing.

Even Steve’s eyes lock to the darkness, a strange sort of longing in his face.

Tony bolsters them both by laying gold at their feet, readying for any sign of movement.

They’ve discussed this, early on in the journey, when they were laying contingencies, getting the feel for each other’s abilities. Tony is to be both a distraction and to clear the lay of the land. He can keep the dragon’s attention on him, can survive the fire with his gold and catch the eye of the dragon irresistibly while Steve, clever, dangerous Steve picks a way straight to the heart of the dragon.

They creep around from the west, using the cover of bushes.

They’re nearly at the cup of the entrance when Steve holds up his shield to motion a stop. Tony pauses, half his attention on calming the draw of the metal, on holding back the rush of his ability.

There, at the edge of where the light stops in the cave; movement.

The dragon.

A rumbling sound crawls over the rocks.

Déjà vu slams into Tony like a warthog and he grits his teeth against the tide of memories. Him stepping into a space just as this, the gold at his fingertips mighty and horrible, lunging at a dragon before it could recognize Tony was there.

Coming to an abrupt and disgusting halt when he’d found out – when it had –

_Not now_ , Tony orders himself.

Here, in the present, Steve draws his sword with barely a slither of sound as the dragon wades into view.

It’s massive, easily ¾ the size of the entrance, scales a dusty green and topped with horns and claws. The sound it makes moving sends chills down Tony’s spine. He feels melted to the floor.

It stops, half way into the line of light, neck swinging its head directly towards where they are.

Steve draws in a breath and Tony grits his teeth as he begins to reach for his gold, it shivering against him. It captures them in its orange-red gaze, placid and unafraid of them. Still, it doesn’t attack.

The dragon waits and watches.

Tony has to resist the urge to close his eyes, to ask for forgiveness.

_Would but that I had the freedom to spare you_ , Tony thinks.

_Would but that I was the dragon._

Tony watches it back.

Its sides heave with breath even as it sits there, muscles shaking. The scales on its neck and face have a strange coloring, an offness that Tony can’t place. Something unsettling builds in Tony’s mind.

He traces down the boney shape of the dragon, to the floor of the cave where scales and claws lay strewn and for the first time, noticing something awfully like feces and vomit trails. The old yellow-black of its teeth speak of rot. Yet, the dragon sits there, staring out at them, not attacking. Its hoard is pushed away from it, offering no comfort, Tony notices. The call of the gold is from deep on the opposite side of the cave, closer to Steve and Tony than the dragon itself. Something a dragon would never allow.

That’s when Tony realizes the dragon is already dying.

“It’s ill,” Tony says.

Steve glances at him and then back to the dragon shaking in front of them. His shield is steady but he looks like he’d rather begin to lower it.

“What,” he whispers, barely moving his mouth.

“It’s ill,” Tony’s chest hurts. “Look at it.”

“I am,” Steve hisses, like Tony’s forgetting they are staring down a dragon right now.

“It’s not supposed to look like that,” Tony says, “The blood on the claws or the molting of so many scales.”

The discoloration is a lack of scales, Tony finally figures. It’s lost so many over the front of it, it’s gone bloodied and weak, too exposed, too unprotected.

The pain must be immense.

Tony wonders if that was why it attacked, or if the attack came before the illness, exacerbated its effect on the dragon. The blood must be somewhat from the wounds garnered from the knights who shot at it as it flew away. Maybe the source of the infection.

A bloom of relief builds in Tony’s stomach and he feels sickened by it.

How horrible, to be happy at a creature’s suffering merely so he would be spared more.

“It’s dying,” Steve says, unaware of the turmoil in Tony’s mind. “Painfully.”

“Yes,” Tony says, even though it wasn’t a question.

Steve isn’t an oblivious man. He’s taking down the details of the cave, his fighting stance turning more and more into pity. The dragon merely watches, a scale sloughing off its cheek with a dripping of blood, even as they look on. Steve winces.

“Is that why it attacked?”

“I don’t know,” Tony answers, “It could be.”

It doesn’t change their orders, but it does change the way they look into the cave, the lens over the strange out-of-place attack that resulted in the call for its death. Could it have known, Tony wonders. Could it have known how to ask for death to come for it?

The thought chokes in his throat.

Breath rattling loud enough to echo, the dragon blinks one eye as if agreeing.

Tony would rather do anything but wade into this cave. But to leave it now would be doubly cruel. Death by starvation or blood loss. Being eaten away inside.

Steve looks similarly opposed to the idea.

“We have to,” he clenches his hand around his sword, takes a deep breath.

“Yes,” Tony whispers, sadly.

Jaw clenching, determined to the core, Steve nods. “The same plan, then. And be swift.”

A clean death. A kind death, if there ever is one.

Tony’s not so sure but he agrees with Steve anyway.

He moves left, along the wall of the cave, as Steve dips down to a crouch and heads east, in between brush lining the entrance. As they predicted, the dragon’s eyes stay on Tony.

He tries to steady his breathing, keeping an eye on Steve’s progress. Already, the pulse of the gold is getting faster in Tony’s veins. He’s close to the beginnings of the pile, golden coins from too many kingdoms, scattered far and wide across the rock. His boot touches one of them.

The dragon hisses weakly, thin trails of smoke falling from its mouth. It doesn’t have enough energy to spark an ignition.

Steve is around the bend of the cave, barely ten paces from the dragon.

Now or never.

Tony waits just for the slight movement of Steve’s sword. Their signal.

He draws a wall of gold in front of him from the deep of the hoard pile and the dragon rears shakily.

A second, two, Tony grits his teeth and waits for the dragon to sway forward and then launches the gold-titanium from his hands. It hits the dragon with a thudding sound, scales falling and blood building. Tony draws the wraps – he refuses to call them manacles or a collar with a leash – as tight as he dares, tries not to aggravate the injuries for all the good it will do.

Steve slips silently behind the dragon. He’s coming from behind its right side.

Tony shifts his hold on the gold, pushing the dragon’s neck left.

It snarls.

Its flamed eyes are wide, deep. It knows. But, still its wings are tucked to its back, unmoving.

Not even trying to escape.

The gold wall at the floor in front of Tony quakes as his stomach rolls.

Steve is readying himself to jump, sword and shield in hand.

The dragon’s neck curls down slightly.

It sighs.

The sound rings down Tony’s memory, calls to another dragon that sighed in pain, shaking at death’s door. It had the same deep pooled eyes, the same unfathomable knowledge. The same mark of death drawn upon its back.

Tony wishes they had a moment to spare for him to throw up.

Steve attacks.

The sharp blow of the sword cuts into the weak spot at the base of the dragon’s neck at the same time the shield catches the back of its head.

Blood arcs upwards. The thuds slam through the cave, echoing with brutal efficiency. A slice opens up in the neck, creeping around, visible to Tony, showing a mess of slick bone and torn ligament.

The dragon’s eyes click shut one last time,

The cave shudders once with something; a lost magic, a weight of age. A ripple of unease moves through the gold hoard, the iron and zinc in the walls. Steve stumbles as he lights back on ground.  Tony swallows convulsively and lets the gold drip back to the hoard.

His gold, the gold he will carry with him evermore, is still wrapped around the dying dragon, trapping it in air immobile. The crest of its chest heaves one final time and Tony feels it in the bands around its neck. Like this, it looks defeated. A mighty expanse of muscle and scale in its curated fortress of fortune, broken down and beaten.

Tony is abruptly furious.

How dare the king task them with this. How dare nature allow this being to befall such an ugly, inglorious end. How could Tony have ever have thought he wouldn’t be a tool of destruction. How could humans think themselves so far above thinking, speaking –

His control on the gold wraps wavers.

The dragon slips from his grip.

As it falls, it’s tail comes up, a mighty lash that sweeps across half the cave. A death throe. Steve is too close, he’s still right beside the body.

_No_.

Tony is already running across the floor when the tail catches Steve’s sword arm, sending his sword flying into the gold hoard.

The end spike tears clean through his arm, blood pouring out.

Tony catches Steve as he cries out.

“Steve,” he pushes at Steve’s armor, trying to find the extent of the wound.

Steve pushes back at him, groaning, “It’s my arm, I’m fine.”

“Curse fine, what the damn -”

“The tail,” Steve grits out as Tony drags them away from the dragon, drags them out of the cesspool of the cave and into the light.

“I know, you _stupid_ ,” he says to Steve. He feels lightheaded, with fear or disgust, he can’t tell.

“I didn’t know it could do that,” Steve insists, dropping to the ground where Tony tries to ease him, “Anyone would have been surprised.”

“I wouldn’t have gotten hit with a death-throes tail spike,” Tony says, cuttingly, fear and unhappiness making his voice rough. He’s shucking off the gold of his armor and his pack, rooting around for salve, for wraps.

“Never,” Steve gasps as Tony straightens out his arm, releasing the clasps of his armor. He reaches out to grip Tony. “Understood why the king didn’t just send you alone, anyway. You’re more than a match for the dragon. You’re a _goldsmith_. You’ve slain threefold the dragons anyone else at court has.”

A bitter smile creeps onto Tony’s face as he cleans out the wound.

He tries not to think about the body they have just left behind, the sweet call of the gold still there that Tony will have to deal with before they can leave. Of how many bodies and hoards he’s dealt with before.

“Because last time,” he breaths out, “I couldn’t complete the task set to me.”

“Why?”

A question Tony would rather pretend he hadn’t heard, but Steve is still clinging to him, eyes fluttering with pain and it seems cruel to deny him a distraction.

“It spoke,” Tony almost stops with that, but it’s only a half truth, “It told me,” he swallows, “that it wanted to live.”

Steve’s eyes close.

“I couldn’t – ” Tony’s voice breaks.

He looks down at Steve’s arm, focuses on the long jagged line of broken skin.

“The king sent another,” Steve whispers, knowing already how the story ends.

Tony uses a thread of gold to pull a few pieces of dirt out of the wound as gently as possible. His hands are shaking.

“They hurt it,” Tony’s voice is barely audible, “Before they . . .”

He doesn’t finish.

Steve’s hand grips his hip hard.

The bandages and salve are still where Tony dropped them. He pats down Steve’s arm with the barest touches using the smallest soaked rag.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Steve says, around a sound of pain.

_The dragon or you_ , Tony almost asks, bites his tongue to bleeding instead.

“How do you figure that,” Tony mutters savagely instead, beginning to wrap Steve’s arm as carefully as he can.

“You didn’t know,” Steve says. As if it truly is that simple.

“I should have.”

He should have.

It’s his job to know these things. It was his job to know that dragons were vocal, intelligent. It was his job to know if he wouldn’t complete the slaying, the king would send someone, someone else who would enjoy it. It was his job to protect Steve.

“You could not have,” Steve presses.

Tony checks the lines of Steve’s wrap, watches the faintest shadow of blood grow underneath. It’s a deep wound.

Calloused fingers touch his cheek, the clenched line of his jaw. They curl under his chin and tilt his face upwards.

“Don’t,” he whispers.

Steve’s eyes are a calm, endless sky.

“Don’t what?” he asks, softly, as he guides Tony’s face closer.

_Don’t be nice to me_ , Tony thinks.

_Kiss me. Please, kiss me,_ Tony thinks.

“Don’t,” he says again.

Steve nods barely, nearly nose to nose with Tony, now.

“I won’t,” he speaks just before his lips touch Tony’s.

Tony doesn’t believe him, not one bit.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! tumblr post [[here]](https://starvels.tumblr.com/post/163568001776/) and tag for my bingo fics [[here]](https://starvels.tumblr.com/tagged/stony-bingo-2017).
> 
> comments and critiques always loved <3


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